On a Thursday afternoon outside the Senate, Sen. Joe Manchin stood in a crush of reporters, ready to deal a death blow to President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better agenda.
Manchin, a West Virginia Democrat and the state’s former governor, announced in no uncertain terms he would not support his party’s $3.5 trillion social welfare spending package packed with new entitlements and green energy policies aimed at eliminating fossil fuels.
A day earlier, he had issued a statement calling the proposal “fiscal insanity” paid for with “vindictive” tax hikes.
Instead, he told reporters, Congress should begin negotiating a much smaller package that reforms the nation’s tax code with fewer tax increases and spends no more than $1.5 trillion on new government programs targeted only toward the neediest.
“Because I believe in my heart that’s what we can do, with the needs we have right now and what we can afford to do, without basically changing our whole society to an entitlement mentality,” Manchin explained.
Manchin’s announcement made it across the Capitol just in time to jeopardize House passage of Biden’s other top priority, a $1.2 trillion infrastructure package he had personally negotiated with Republican and Democratic senators earlier this year.
Without a guarantee Congress will pass the $3.5 trillion social welfare bill, House liberals refused to support the infrastructure measure, which they said lacked sufficient green energy policies. Democrats believe they had an agreement that the two measures would pass in tandem to ensure centrists and liberals would work together to get both across the finish line.
House Progressive Caucus Chairwoman Pramila Jayapal, a Washington state Democrat, said more than half of those in her faction would vote to block the infrastructure package until the social welfare bill was ready to pass with it.
“We’ve been clear that we are ready to vote for both bills and deliver the entirety of the president’s Build Back Better agenda,” Jayapal said. “We will not be able to vote for the infrastructure bill until the reconciliation bill has passed.”
Jayapal said Democrats are still waiting for Senate Democrats to produce an agreement among themselves that can be used to start negotiations with the House.
Manchin’s steadfast refusal to back many of the critical liberal wish list items will make this a daunting task.
In addition to cutting the price tag significantly, Manchin said he believes the plan to hike taxes on corporations from 21% to 26.5% goes too far, calling instead for a 25% top rate.
Manchin won’t back some of the key green energy policies liberals hope to pass that are aimed at cutting fossil fuel use, which isn’t surprising for a lawmaker who hails from an energy-producing state.
He opposes a carbon capture requirement Democrats hope to impose on natural gas and wants tax credits for coal and gas power plants that use carbon capture and storage technology.
Manchin also wants fossil fuel subsidies to remain in place if tax credits for wind and solar power are extended in the bill and is calling for hydrogen-powered cars to be eligible for the “green” vehicle tax credits Democrats included in their bill.
Manchin is also insisting new government programs utilize means-testing to ensure they are provided only to those who need the services the most, which means plans to provide universal preschool and free community college could end up far more limited than Democrats had hoped. And he opposes a plan to remove decades-old work requirements for government entitlements.
Democrats, trying to find a path forward, say they are now resigned to negotiate from Manchin’s low number, although they say it will ultimately have to increase.
Manchin’s vote is critical. Democrats and Republicans are evenly split in the Senate. Democrats hope to pass the social welfare spending package unilaterally by using a special budgetary tactic called reconciliation. That means they need every single lawmaker in their party to vote for it, including Manchin.
Sen. Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat who heads the Senate Finance Committee, said Thursday he is encouraged by Manchin’s desire to reform the 2017 tax cuts, which Democrats unanimously opposed and believed were too generous to corporations and the wealthy.
“Yesterday, he made it very clear that he wants to start … by rolling back the 2017 tax bill,” Wyden said of Manchin’s stance on the big-spending package. “And my reaction to that is, we’ve spent three full years with the Senate Finance Committee getting ready to roll back the 2017 tax bill, and we are ready to go right now. And that’s my response to that.”
When a reporter asked Wyden about Manchin’s $1.5 trillion limit on spending, Wyden said, “I’m just going to leave it at that.”
